Updated – Ascend Elements steps away from cathode production

The battery recycling company Ascend Elements which is building a hydrometallurgical plant in Kentucky and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has mutually agreed to cancel a $164 million grant designated for cathode production at the site. Instead the company will focus on building its plant for precursor which is supported by a separate $316 million DOE grant. The reason is that Ascend Elements finds the market for cathode material in the US being saturated while there is still a need for precursor, serving cathode producers in the region.

Ascend Elements was originally spun out of Worchester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts with the idea to process waste batteries back to cathode material. Since then the company has raised over $1.5Bn.

Comment

Ascend Elements' project is extremely ambitious and in a scale that far exceeds available feedstock. In 2024 the company's largest owner SK Ecoplant sold its share in the company referring to a too steep valuation.

To grow stepwise is probably a good strategy and the demand for precursor will indeed be strong given cathode projects in North America will materialise. However cathode producers are usually also depending on specific pCAM products and have their own value chains to rely on. Moreover, it is still a challenge to set up a plant in the scale Ascend Elements is set to do, something that has become evident in Europe where the battery maker Northvolt faced severe problems in its upstream activities, leading to delays and quality problems which contributed to the company's bankruptcy.

UPDATE 20th March 2025

The 20th March Ascend Elements announced the appointment of Linh Austin, President and CEO of Ascend Elements replacing Mike O´Kronley. Austin has a long experience from the oil and gas industry and has been on the board of Ascend Elements since September 2024.